Schumbug.

Okay, okay. It finally got to me. It's Christmas Eve night and Sarah is suffering from sleep loss induced mania. She's had no nap all day and she's tired, but gosh almighty, Santa's coming to bring her presents! I decide to hop on the LIE train and use the handy dandy internet to pull up the NORAD Santa Tracker. What a hoot that was. Once she figured out what it was and we watched a few "videos" they had shot of Santa as he flew through places all over the world, she was enthralled. She sat there in front of the map, waiting for Santa to "move" to the next location. We talked about how he brings presents to all the little children in the world (that's the worst part of the lie I think) and how he'd find her even though we weren't in our house. Then we had to rock her in the rocking chair - the going to bed process wasn't easy. But finally, after an hour of asking questions and cuddling and santa tracking we stuffed her in the bed and under the covers, her little eyes twinkling in the dim light of the computer monitor.
Then WE go nuts. Perhaps it was our own lack of sleep. I said to Hal, "Hey - let's put her presents out and then we'll run into the bedroom and wake her up and tell her that she JUST missed Santa Claus! Then we'll see her little face light up!" My rationale was that she'd get up before us in the morning and we'd miss the look. That awesome look of suprise and delight on a child's face that would be our reward for spending all that money on her presents. Hal's response: Yeah, let's do that. So we did. We pulled out the presents, arranged them by the little tree, and WOKE THE CHILD UP! She ran into the room and said, "where's Santa"? Thank you Santa Claus!" She just nutted up. She pulled candy canes and silly putty out of her stocking, then she unwrapped a toy, then she'd stop for a second and exclaim, "look at all my presents!" and grab up another one to unwrap. I think we got in bed around 1:30 AM. She took the silly putty and the yo-yo with her because she wanted to sleep with them. It was great.
Today, after we woke up, we had something like buyer's remorse. We kept asking each other, "do you think we got her too many presents?" And then, "well we'll set a limit next year" and "she shouldn't need any more toys this year." But it's all just talk. We both know this child has us wrapped around her little finger like (silly) putty. So, in a nutshell, all this business about Bah Humbug was just Schumbug.